• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.401-418
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine philosophical views on science of two influential curriculum documents, AAAS' s Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy (Benchmark) and NRC's National Science Education Standards (Standard), and to get educational implications about a desired philosophical view on science at a school science level. In order to determine the philosophical views on science explicitly suggested in the documents, Soh's Philosophical Perspectives Probe (PPP) was used as a framework for analysis. Forty preservice teachers reviewed the documents, extracting paragraphs with which statements of the PPP' s questions would agree. The results of the study were as follows: First, the Benchmark's philosophical view on science corresponds to the borderline between inductivism and eclecticism, or eclecticism close to falsificationism. The philosophical positions by the PPP' s themes are very different. Second, the Standard's philosophical position on science corresponds to inductivism close to eclecticism. Its philosophical position by the themes of the PPP is very different like the Benchmark. These results indicate that philosophical positions of the documents are more complex than popular conceptions would have it. That is to say, the results suggest that the science curriculum documents hold not only a contemporary philosophical view on science but also a traditional view on science, and that the philosophical positions on science are different from each other by documents and even by the PPP's themes in the same document. The results suggest that the philosophical views on science in school science contexts need to be adjusted and presented to K-12 students according to topics related to philosophy of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.809-817
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• 2007

The purpose of this research was to investigate the nature of the science views of science teachers and high school students as well as the views expressed in 10th grade science textbooks. The subjects were a high school science teacher, 18 male students and 11 female students in a 10th grade class located in Gyeongbuk Province, Korea. The data were analyzed in terms of three main categories of the nature of the science: the definition of science, the development of science, and the method of science. In the results, it was found that the textbook had an inductivism point of view, and that the teacher had a falsificationism point of view in terms of the definition of science. However, the teacher presented the inductive point of view of the textbook in the class. After the class, the students showed an inductive point of view. In terms of scientific development, the textbook represented a relativism point of view briefly, and the viewpoint of the teacher also expressed relativism. The teacher taught briefly from the relativism point of view, as in the textbook. The viewpoints of the students were inductivism and were not affected by the textbook or the explanations of the teacher. In terms of scientific methods, the viewpoints of the textbook and the teacher were falsificationism, and the teacher represented falsificationism views in her classes. The views of the students also showed falsificationism after their classes. However, before conclusions can be made, it is necessary to find concrete proof of the teaching effect on the viewpoints of the students in continuing research.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.234-240
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• 2004

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of interpretive style reading materials on high school students philosophical viewpoints on science. Subjects for this study were 137 girl students in four classes of a high school located in Daejeon city. The classes were divided into two groups: experimental groups and control groups. Students in the experimental groups were administered a series of the reading materials over thirty-six sessions. Additionally, PPP(Philosophical Perspectives Prove) was used in order to assess students philosophical viewpoints on science. Results of the study showed that the interpretive style reading materials takes effect on the change of students philosophical viewpoints on science. At the initial stage, a number of students exhibited viewpoints inclined toward inductivism. As time goes by, however, viewpoint of inductivism was decreased and view of falcificationism and view of relativism were increased. The results also indicated that the effect of intervention was stable.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.104-115
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• 1995

Teachers' conception about the nature of science is considered to be an important factor to improve the students' conceptions of that. It is assumed that teachers' conception of the nature of science may be influenced by their views of learning. The first purpose of this study was to investigate the exploratory relationships between teachers' conceptions about the nature of science and their views of learning. The second one was to compare the their conceptions and views of learning before and after science education lectures during 1 semester. We administered the questionnaires for the nature of science and for constructivist's learning, respectively, consisted of 5 dimensions (relativism-positivism; inductivism- deductivism; decontextualism-contextualism; content-process; instrumentalism-realism) and of 6 aspects (student; learning; instruction; teacher; curriculum; evaluations) were administered to 57 pre-service elementary teachers (female=44; male=13) before and after lectures. In pre-test it was revealed that respondents had not the consistent conceptions about the nature of science. The conception of relativism was more dominant than those of positivism, deductivism than inductivism, decontextualism than contextualism, process than content and instrumentalism than realism. They had more constructivist views in the respect of process of learning than in other respects, that is, students, instruction, teacher, curriculum and evaluation. But no significant correlations between the dimensions of the nature of science and the aspects of the views of learning suggest that constructivst views of learning was not deeply related with their conceptions of the nature of science. In post-test we had similar results with those of the pre-test, but the process-content dimensions of the nature of science was correlated with the constuctivist views of learning. Therefore we concluded that elementary pre-service teachers had the constructivist views of learning which was isolated with their conceptions of the nature of science although they had science educations course. We need to develop the course to make the conceptions of the nature of science relate view of learning.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.397-405
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• 2002

This study investigated science gifted middle school students' philosophical views on scientific knowledge, and the effects of discussing and reading related to the knowledge. Ten eighth-graders in a science gifted class participated in this study. The results can be summarized as follows: 1, At the beginning, the students had one of six positions: (a) relativism (n = 2); (b) falsificationism (n = 2); (c) borderline between relativism and eclecticism (n = 1); (d) borderline between falsificationism and eclecticism (n = 3); (e) borderline among relativism, falsificationism, and eclecticism (n = 1); and (f) borderline inductivism and eclecticism (n = 1). This result indicated that most students had on almost modern philosophical view of scientific knowledge. 2, Some students, who had chosen the item of inductivism in some questions of the instrument at the beginning, maintained their selection despite discussions and readings related to scientific knowledge. The data were examples which indicated the difficulty of changing from a traditional view to a modern view of scientific knowledge.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.119-125
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• 1997

In the last few years, there has been a significant growth of interest in how the philosophy of science can be related to science education. Adequate understanding of the philosophy and history of science can promote understanding of the nature of science in teacher and student. The 6th curriculum in Korea has also placed emphasis upon understanding of the nature of science. From this point of view, to ensure effective school science education it is necessary to investigate how teachers and students are understanding the nature of science. To do this 45 secondary science teachers and 191 students of 7 schools in Seoul are administered Nott and Wellington's questionaire(1993). This questionaire is consisted of 24 Likert Scale statements and asks questions on 5 subscales of philosophy of science :Relativism-Positivism, Inductivism-Deductivism, Contextualism-Decontextualism, Instrumentalism-Realism, Thinking science education as a Process or a Content. The results of this study are as follows : 1. Teachers' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 2. There was no difference in teachers' conceptions on the nature of science according to experience and gender. 3. Students' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 4. There was no difference in students' conceptions on the nature of science according to schools level(middle vs high) and gender. But, female students exhibited higher score than male students on deductivism(p<.05). 5. Teachers' and students' conception of the nature of science was in agreement with each other.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.127-136
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to develop, field test an instrument to assess secondary school students' conceptions of the nature of science. The instrument named Philosophical Perspectives Probe(PPP) is a pool of 24 multiple-choice items that address a wide range of philosophical topics of science. The statements and the choices of this instrument were derived from an analysis of various philosophical positions. The main philosophical systems of the instrument are inductivism, falsificationism, and relativism, respectively. Major distinctions depend on the issues of the criteria of demarcation, patterns of scienctific change, epistemological status of scientific knowledge, and the scientific methods. The researchers also offer teachers a new way of assessing and interpreting their students' conceptions on a wide variety of topics related to the nature of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.221-231
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• 1998

Middle school science teachers performed activities to identify their philosophical perspectives of science through a series of "card game" planned for this research. The subjects of the research were 156 middle school science teachers participated in the 1997 in-service science teachers' training course of the Gyeong Sang Nam Do province. The teachers performed the activities for this research for three hours during their workshops. We found that the subjects in the research were turned out predominant in the inductivistic views regardless of their major. gender, and career. In addition, in the process of collective consensus making, views of (a) the criteria of demarcation and (b) the patterns of scientific change were shifted to the extreme inductivism, (c) the epistemological status of scientific knowledge to the relativism, and (d) the scientific methods to the falsificationism, respectively.